


always choose you

by jemmasimmmons



Series: dancing in our world alone (let them talk) [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, alternative title: the return of mark and jemma explores some feelings, happy (late) valentine's!, i planned this sadder than it ended up so there you go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-13 03:28:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3366038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jemmasimmmons/pseuds/jemmasimmmons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Jemma Simmons, alone on Valentine's night. What would the guys from the Boilerroom have to say to that?'</p>
<p>'I'm not going to be alone, thank you very much. I'm going to be with you.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	always choose you

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all had a very happy Valentine's day! I would have had this up yesterday but I was at an open day for the university I am attending next year and it was a very long and tiring day.   
> This one didn't turn out quite the way I had originally planned, but I think that was actually for the best. I am much happier with how it ended than how I had first wanted it to end, and I hope you like it too.

_ Two years before _

 

'I bloody hate Valentine's Day.'

Jemma wondered why she wasn't surprised.

She glanced up from her work at her lab partner as he approached their bench. Fitz sat down heavily on the stool beside her and snatched the microscope she had been working on into out of her hands and pulled it towards him. Jemma pursed her lips together to suppress a sigh.

Being best friends with Leopold Fitz was exhausting. An incredible, rushing you off your feet kind of exhausting, but exhausting just the same. He could be grumpy, he stayed up till ungodly hours of the night tinkering on something or another and he didn't like a lot of things. Or people, come to think about it.

But, for some reason, he liked her. And for Jemma, that was enough to make it all worth it.

'Well,' she said cautiously, easing out a stack of papers from under the microscope. 'I don't know about _hating_ it, exactly, but I certainly agree it is a somewhat misguided holiday. St. Valentine was actually attributed in the early Christian church as being the patron of plague and epilepsy victims, not romance.'

Fitz gave a non-committal grunt at her commentary and squinted down the microscope, twisting the knob at the side. Jemma waited patiently.

'Fitz.'

'What, Simmons?'

'I already took the sample out.'

He drew his eye away from the lens with an embarrassed cough. 'I knew that.'

Jemma shook her head, and continued writing out her notes. But it wasn't long before her attention was drawn back up to Fitz again. He hadn't moved since he'd pushed the microscope away, hadn't gotten out his pencils, or notepad. He was staring straight ahead of him, a slight scowl on his face. She followed the direction of his gaze.

At the front of their chem lab room was a large, pink cardboard letterbox, covered in glitter and sparkly hearts. The idea, Agent Weaver had explained in assembly the week before, was that if they wanted to send a Valentine's card to anyone then they could post it in the letterbox over the week and it would be delivered on the day itself to that person's workbench. Personally, Jemma thought it was a very sweet idea.

'They certainly go all out for it over here, don't they?' she said, cheerfully. 'I mean, back home there are a few more boxes of chocolates in Tesco's, a row of pink cards in Clinton's...nothing like this.'

'It's ridiculous,' Fitz declared. 'The whole thing is just commercial conspiracy. Like we really need a whole day to show that we care about somebody. People ought to do that everyday, if they love someone enough.'

Jemma blinked up at him in surprise.

'And as for that thing,' he continued, waving his hand vaguely in the direction of the letterbox. 'Well, that's just insensitive. What about the people who don't get _any_ cards? What if everybody gets a card except for one person? How _useless_ is that going to make them feel?'

'Oh, I'm sure everyone will...'

'Not that that's anything _you_ have to worry about,' he told her, not unkindly.

Jemma opened her mouth to protest, then shut it again. Objectively, she knew she was pretty, and she was the smartest in their class (joint smartest, if you wanted to get fussy about it). Not getting any Valentine's Day cards _wasn't_ something _she_ had any need to worry about.

But was it something _Fitz_ was worrying about?

'It's not anything anyone needs to worry about,' she said, trying to make her tone breezy. 'It's just a stupid holiday, right?'

'Right,' Fitz echoed. 'A stupid holiday.'

But he was still glaring at the letterbox and Jemma bit her bottom lip.

'Well then,' she said, eventually. 'Do you want to run the molecular dialysis, or shall I?'

 

'Jemma Simmons?'

The sophmore guy standing above her was wearing bright pink wings and had a miniature bow and arrow slung over his shoulder. She imagined he must be some kind of mini Cupid, recruited by their professors to hand out the Valentine's cards to the students. Probably with extra credit involved.

'That's me!' Jemma replied, brightly, eyeing up the three envelopes he held in his hand as she put her pencil down.

Sure enough, the guy handed the cards to her with a smile and moved on, leaving a trail of hot pink feathers in his wake.

Jemma examined the cards she held in her hand. After several months of scrutinising her classmates handwriting on the blackboards, she could accurately identify each of the senders.

Steve Johnson: in her biology class, taller than average, heavier on the shoulders than the waist.

Rashid Chaplin: in chem lab _and_ biology, her height and skinnier too.

Jonathan Hill: in chem lab, Fitz's height, symmetrical body shape with evenly weighted muscle mass. She met his eye across the room and gave him an appreciative smile.

Next to her, Fitz hadn't even raised his head and his pencil was still scrawling across the paper at a furious pace. Jemma tapped her foot against the underside of the workbench impatiently.

'Hey, you're Fitz, right?'

The guy in wings was back, hovering over their bench. Fitz looked up suspiciously, his eyes narrowed.

'Yeah.'

A red envelope landed on the bench, ontop of Fitz's notebook. His name was written in silver pen across it and there was a small trail of silver hearts doodled down the side.

'Happy Valentine's Day, buddy,' the sophmore called over his shoulder as he floated out of the room.

Jemma kept her head down, diligently copying down Agent Weaver's calculations from the board, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw Fitz slide the envelope off the table and prise the envelope open to take the card out. She saw him run his fingers over the front of the card, then turn it over to read the inside. She saw the corners of his mouth twitch up in a smile.

'So,' she said. 'Who's it from?'

'Doesn't say.'

'Can I see?'

He handed her the card, his hand covering his mouth. The card was handmade, from pink paper and printed across the front were several elemental symbols, arranged in a sentence: “ **Be** (ryllium) **mine** **V** (anadium) **Al** (uminium) **E** (sinstenium) **N** (itrogen) **Ti** (tanium) **Ne** (on)”.

'Very creative,' Jemma remarked, handing it back to him.

'Yeah.'

'I like the silver.'

'Mmm.'

He was smiling, behind his hand.

Jemma smirked.

'Still hate Valentine's Day, then?'

He shook his head at her. 'Shut up, Simmons.'

She turned back to her notes with a grin on her face and a heavy warmth spreading through her chest.

The hearts, she thought to herself, had been a splash of artistic genius.

 

 

_ Present day _

 

'I still can't believe they have that _thing_ here.'

'Oh, please, it's not as if it's the same one.'

'It's following me.'

Jemma snorted. 'Fitz, I'm pretty sure it was here _long_ before we were.'

He scowled at her, before giving her a gentle push in the direction of the lift up to their lab.

The offending object in question was a large pink postbox made of cardboard and decorated with sparkly pink hearts, an almost exact copy of the Valentine's postbox from the Academy, currently residing in the lobby of Sci-Ops. It would seem that some ex-student had set up a similar scheme many years ago (possibly out of nostalgia, possibly out of sheer boredom) and the department had continued to tug out the postbox every year since, to allow its agents a colourful reprieve from the greyness of mid-February.

Jemma stood next to Fitz in the lift, enjoying the feeling of having him next to her, even if he was still grumbling over the Valentine's postbox. Ever since her appendicitis scare the previous month, she had felt a shift in their relationship. Nothing major, nothing life-changing, but now she felt like less of a mother to him, chasing him up on whether he was eating well and chastising him when he got snappy. 

Now, she felt like they were on more equal grounds on that basis. She took more comfort in his presence and he seemed slightly more protective towards her. She knew he could take care of her too now, and it only made her feel safer with him than she had before. She liked that. It felt nice, to be taken care of too sometimes.

'So, what do you want to do tonight?' she asked, as the lift opened at their floor.

'Tonight?' Fitz glanced at her in mock horror. 'What, you mean to say you don't have a hot date lined up for tonight?'

'In case you hadn't noticed, I have been a little too busy in the lab these past few months to make any headway romantically.'

Fitz was grinning as he held his lanyard up to the glass door of their lab to buzz them in.

'Jemma Simmons, alone on Valentine's night,' he marvelled, pulling up the holotable and pushing things aside until he uncovered their most recent project. 'What would the guys from the Boilerroom have to say to that?'

Jemma rolled her eyes as she swatted at him with her plastic gloves. 'Yes, yes, very funny. And I'm not going to be  _ alone _ , thank you very much. I'm going to be with you.' 

He was smiling as she dragged a stool over to sit opposite him at the holotable.

'Which,' Jemma said, hoisting herself up to sit on the stool. 'Brings me back to my original question. What do you want to do tonight?'

Fitz shrugged, already fully engaged in his work. 'I don't know. Movie night? What do you want to watch?'

It was how they worked: he picked one part, she picked another. Somehow, it always seemed to work out.

'Well...' Jemma said slowly, thinking of the stack of guilty pleasure romance films she had neatly lined up on their DVD shelf for a special occasion. 'It  _ is _ Valentine's Day...'

'...Which is exactly why we should watch the goriest horror films we can find,' he finished.

'Urgh, Fitz!' She wrinkled up her nose at him. 'Those are so biologically inaccurate, it's practically offensive. There is absolutely no possible way people would be able to survive  _ half _ of the injuries sustained in those films.'

'Yes, and your constant commentary reminding me about it when we watch them is the only reason I can watch them without throwing up.'

'You only want to watch them so you can feel manly.'

'And your point being?'

He handed her the holograph of a chemical formula she had been working on and Jemma took it, pinging a DWARF prototype in his direction in return.

'Compromise?' he offered after a moment. 'One of your chick flicks, then a gore fest?'

'And repeat as necessary?' She nodded. 'Sounds good to me.'

Fitz smiled, and they both set to their work, falling into the quiet, easy rhythm they always done, each focused on their own task but still keeping one ear and eye open to what the other was doing.

After a while, Jemma glanced up.

'Don't look now,' she murmured, raising her eyebrows at the person approaching the glass doors of their lab.

'Hmm?' Fitz squinted at her quizzically, before spinning around to follow her gaze. He gave a groan. 'Oh, bloody hell...'

'Hey, you two!'

Agent Mark Taylor, one half of the biotechnology duo that lived above them, waved at them through the glass. Jemma waved back and let him in with a smile. Mark was wearing a red t-shirt with a pink heart stitched across the front and a pair of white fluffy wings on his back. He was also carrying a drawstring bag that looked like it was fit to bursting with cards.

'Agent Taylor, what a surprise!' Jemma exclaimed, giving him a beaming smile. 'To what do we owe the pleasure?'

Mark snorted at her. 'Oh, come off it, Simmons, you're smarter than that. Hey, Fitz.' He nodded at the engineer, who gave a nod in response.

'Hey, Mark.'

'I am here,' their fellow agent announced, 'on special Cupid duty, one day only!'

Fitz raised an eyebrow. 'And how much did Agent McNally bribe you to get you to do this?'

'Fitz, buddy, give me some credit. I don't accept bribes. A good word in to Director Fury from our S.O. about how eager I was to show some team spirit, on the other hand...now, that I wouldn't turn down.'

Fitz rolled his eyes and shook his head.

'Aha!' Mark had been rummaging in his bag as he had been speaking, and triumphantly produced two envelopes. He passed them across the holotable to Fitz with a flourish. 'Somebody's popular this year!'

The tops of Fitz's ears turned pink; Jemma turned towards him sharply.

He'd gotten _two_ cards?

One of them, naturally, was from her. She had continued with the science theme in her cards to him since that first year at the academy – Last year, she had cut the card in the shape of a magnet, with the words 'I find you very attractive' written around it. That had been his only card that year as well. She had received two.

This year, she had drawn a charged atom, with hearts as molecules, and had written at the top: 'I've got my ion you!'. She was pretty certain he knew it was her sending them to him. But he had never said anything, so neither did she.

She wondered who the other card would be from.

Fitz caught her eye and Jemma looked away again, her heart hammering.

'Aaah...' Mark was still fumbling through his bag and he came up looking sheepish. 'I, um, don't actually think I have one for you, Simmons.' He licked his lips, anxiously. 'Sorry.'

'Oh.'

It wasn't exactly a surprise. Since moving to Sci-Ops, where both she and Fitz were at least three years younger than the next youngest agents, she hadn't dated anyone, nor had anyone seemed to show any interest in her (beyond the usual how-are-you-so-smart-and-yet-so-small interest that seemed to follow her wherever she went as an attractive young prodigy in a male dominated field). Yet, somehow, it still hurt.

Jemma swallowed hard.

'Oh, don't worry,' she said, cheerfully, waving off Mark's apology. 'It's not like it matters.'

Fitz was watching her, his cards still unopened in his hands. When she looked at him, she saw his eyes clouded with something – Guilt? Pity? - before he saw her looking at him and quickly turned his attention back to his cards.

'So!' Mark's clap of his hands as he rubbed them together made them both jump. 'I'd better be getting on then. Lots more Valentine's love to spread.'

'See you later, Mark,' Jemma said, buzzing him out of the lab.

'You too, FitzSimmons. Have a good one!'

And then he was gone, a trail of glitter following him down the corridor.

With a deep breath, Jemma turned back to Fitz, a smile pinned on her face. Fitz wasn't looking at her; he was focusing intently on his two Valentine's. One, hers, he had already opened and had propped up on the desk. The other, he was just sliding out of the envelope. The card was a classic Valentine, a shop bought red card with a pair of gold lovebirds printed on it. Next to it, Jemma realised her handmade one looked a little shabby. Maybe even a little childish.

'Well!' she said, forcing her voice to come out brighter than she felt. 'Who are they from, then?'

'They don't say. That's sort of the point of Valentine's cards, Simmons.'

'Oh. Yes, of course. Silly me.'

He rubbed the corner of the envelope between his thumb and forefinger. 'Jemma-'

'Fitz,' she cut in, noticing the discomfort in his face. 'It's fine. Honestly. Do you really think I'm vain enough to be bothered about the number of Valentine's cards I get?'

'What? I don't think you're vain at all!' he protested, tucking his cards under the holotable. 'It's just...'

'Fitz, really. I'm not worried. It's just a stupid holiday, right?'

'A stupid holiday,' he echoed, and momentarily Jemma flashed back to the last time they had said those words, sitting at their work bench at the Academy, the smell of chemicals under their noses. With the sleek, shiny curves of their lab around them and the blue glow of the holotable between them, Jemma realised how much had changed, and how much was still the same.

After a pause the length of a heartbeat, Fitz exhaled slowly and gave her a grin. The anxiety that had knotted up in Jemma's stomach untwisted and she stepped back to lean over the table.

'So,' Fitz said, swiping up their to do list from the table. 'What's first?'

 

 

'Fitz!' Jemma yelled, as she deposited the steaming bowl of fresh popcorn on the coffee table in front of the couch. 'Where are you? Are you ready to start?'

She had her selection of DVDs for the evening piled up in preference order (least first, favourite last) next to her side of the sofa and had collected supplies and fleece blankets to snuggle up under as the night went on.

All that was missing was the horror films Fitz had wanted to watch.

If there was anything Jemma loved, it was movie nights, especially when she had them with Fitz. They had such different tastes in films, but he indulged her in her clichéd romance fantasies and she suffered through his inaccurate, offensive horror thrillers, but they always watched them together, side by side with the popcorn slotted between them.

The prospect of a movie night with her best friend was almost enough to rid Jemma of the sour feeling that had been in her mouth since that morning. Almost.

'Fitz!' she called again, curling up on her side of the couch and pulling a blanket up to cover her knees. 'Hurry up!'

He had been acting off ever since they had left Sci-Ops that afternoon, more jittery and sidetracked than normal. He had hardly spoken to her the whole drive home, besides the occasional grunt in response whenever it was required, and since they had been back he had avoided her, only coming out of his room when she moved into her own. Jemma had tried not to let it bother her. He did this sometimes, closed in on himself, but she had always managed to wheedle him back out again, with a joke or a smile. She just hoped a movie night would serve the same purpose.

'At last,' she said, as she heard the click of his door open behind her. 'What do you...Oh.'

She broke off as he moved into her view.

She had always known Fitz was attractive.

Genetically speaking, he was incredibly so. His muscle mass had even distribution across his body and he had built up a soft layer of muscle from the minimal combat training that had been required for every cadet. His dusty coloured hair curled ever so slightly, and his complexion was almost better than hers.

She also knew that he could scrub up well, when he wanted to. The photographs taken at their Academy graduation was proof of this – both of her parents and his mum had remarked on how attractive they looked together, he in his black trousers and white shirt, she in her black tea dress and heels.

But she had never known he could look like _this_.

Fitz hovered at the side of the couch, shifting back and forth on one leg. He was wearing carefully pressed navy trousers and a light blue button down shirt, with the top button tastefully undone. Jemma thought momentarily about how the blue brought out his eyes nicely, how it made them seem warmer, softer. Then she blinked away the thought away with a tiny shock of surprise.

'You're a little overdressed for movie night,' she managed to say.

Fitz chuckled nervously, twitching the sleeve of the jacket that he had folded over his arm.

'If you'd wanted to dress up,' Jemma continued, her palms sweating slightly. 'You could have said. I'd have worn a dress...'

'I'm not dressed up for movie night, Simmons.'

She swallowed. 'Right.'

For the first time, Fitz looked up and met her eye. 'I, um, I actually have a date.'

Jemma blinked. 'Oh.'

'Yeah.'

'You know, you probably could have told me that before we planned tonight,' she said. She had meant for it to come out lightly, a clever quip, but there was a quiver in her voice as she said it and it ended up just sounding sad.

Fitz winced, and rubbed at the back of his neck. 'I didn't exactly know about it when we planned...' He gestured vaguely to her blanket set up. 'This.'

Jemma nodded absently. The back of her throat was burning. 'Who, ah...who are you going out with?' Her voice sounded detached, like it belonged to someone else.

'Ruth Newman,' he said, his gaze sliding back down to the ground. 'You know, from reception?'

Jemma nodded again, dumbly. Yes, she knew Ruth. A perfectly pleasant, perfectly pretty girl who had turned up at Sci-Ops the month before. She had a sweet smile and intricately braided cornrow hair with amethyst beads twisted through, and she always called hello to the two of them as they clocked in in the morning. Jemma had always responded cheerfully, Fitz less so. She had always thought he found her irritating.

But apparently, she had missed something.

'She sent me that Valentine,' Fitz blurted out. 'The one with the birds on it. And she asked me out this afternoon, when I went to pick up the DWARF parts from deliveries.'

Jemma remembered that he had come back from deliveries looking dazed and empty handed; she had had to send him back for the parts.

'Why didn't you tell me earlier?' she asked.

He shrugged helplessly. 'I don't know. I didn't know how.'

Jemma rolled her eyes. 'Fitz, it's just a date. It's not like you're marrying the girl.'

'I know that!' he protested, his face flushing red. 'I just felt bad because we'd made plans first, but then she asked me and I panicked and I said yes without thinking about it...'

'Fitz...'

'But then she seemed so _happy_ and I couldn't bloody well say no _then_ , could I?'

'Fitz!'

He ran a hand through his hair. 'Maybe I should ring her,' he said, decidedly. 'Organise something for this weekend instead.'

Jemma's eyebrows shot up. 'Why on _earth_ would you do that?'

'I don't know! But I just...' He broke off and looked up at her, swallowing back the words he had been about to say.

'Just what?' Jemma asked, her voice barely a whisper.

'I don't want to leave you alone,' he mumbled.

Suddenly, Jemma was uncomfortably aware of how pathetic she must look in that moment, curled up on her side on the sofa under a pink fleecy blanket, wearing a t-shirt and a pair of jogging bottoms.

'Fitz, I'm not a baby,' she said, tilting her chin up a little. 'And I am perfectly capable of being left on my own for a night.'

He still looked slightly pained. 'Yeah, I know, but...'

'Not to mention,' Jemma continued, her voice hitching only slightly. 'This is your first date in, what, a year?'

As she said it, she realised that she had never seen him go on a date. Not ever.

'About that, yeah.'

'So, _of course_ you are not going to cancel on Ruth! That's utterly ridiculous, Fitz! Of course you're going.'

'Really?' He sounded confused, as if he wasn't entirely sure what a date was.

' _Yes_!' Jemma managed a smile and hoped it wasn't as watery as it felt.

'Right. Yeah.' He took a deep breath and wiped his hands on his jacket (Jemma winced). He nodded. 'Okay, yeah. I'm taking her.'

There was a pause, during which Jemma kept her eyes stoically trained on the door behind Fitz's shoulder.

'Um, where are you taking her?' she asked, after a while.

Fitz's mouth hovered half open, and he licked his bottom lip. 'I, um, hadn't actually thought of that,' he mumbled.

Jemma sighed.

'Take her to The Rose Garden,' she instructed, quietly, twisting a loose threat on the hem of her blanket. 'I've heard its nice there. They let you cook your own steaks on a hot plate,' she offered.

'Ooh.' Fitz's entire face lit up.

Jemma rolled her eyes. He really was _so_ predictable.

Fitz shrugged himself into his jacket. Jemma watched, then quickly averted her eyes as she found her cheeks growing hot and her palms start to sweat.

Once he had it on, Fitz glanced back at her. The corners of his mouth twitched upwards in a smile, and Jemma found her own doing the exact same, a conditioned response, automatic and instant.

'Thanks, Simmons,' he said.

She shrugged. 'No problem,' she said, and then wondered how she had managed to lie so easily to his face. 'Have a good time.'

'Yeah.'

'Say hi to Ruth for me.'

'I will.'

He turned to leave, then hesitated, turning back to her. 'Jemma?'

Her heart rose, inexplicably.

'Yeah?'

'You're not going to be lonely...are you?'

She wanted to cry. Instead, she forced her head up towards and her mouth to give him a smile.

'Oh, please,' she scoffed. 'I've got an entire evenings worth of weepy romances to watch without them being interrupted by your horrible film choices. I'll be fine.'

He still looked unconvinced.

'Promise,' she whispered, and, at long last, Fitz nodded.

'I'll see you later, then,' he said, and he left, letting the door shut softly behind him.

 

 

On the screen, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio were having sex in a motorcar; if Jemma had been paying more attention, she would be wrinkling up her nose in distaste (really, who would choose to have intercourse in a _car_ , of all places? Think of the bacteria).

But she couldn't focus on the film, even though Titanic was one of her favourites. Usually, she watched it with Fitz and they would spent the majority of the film arguing back and forth about what the best way to rescue the ship would have been. Fitz could get incredibly passionate about how faulty the engineering was. But he would always quieten along with her when Jack made his sacrifice for Rose.

Maybe it was _because_ she always watched the film with Fitz that Jemma couldn't concentrate. She kept remembering something he had said the last time they had watched it, then she would think about him, think about Ruth, think about them together...

She groaned, and twisted her hands restlessly in front of her.

What was _wrong_ with her?

She'd never experienced anything like this before. She felt nauseous, like her insides were tying themselves in ribbons, squeezing her chest and making it hard to breathe. Her fingers were tapping relentlessly against her knees, drawn up under her chin like she was trying to fold in on herself.

Of course, she knew what was wrong, _really_. She wasn't that stupid.

She was jealous. Plain, simple, nauseating jealousy.

But what she couldn't understand was _why_ she felt so jealous, why now, after so many years of friendship with Fitz, did she felt sick to her stomach at the idea of him with another girl.

She shouldn't, she knew that. It was wrong, and selfish and cruel to Fitz and she felt even sicker thinking of that, that she could be cruel to him.

On the screen, Rose and Jack met in the lobby of the ship in a crushing collide and he lifted her off her feet as he yelled at her for being so stupid. Jemma wiped her eyes on the corner of her blanket.

Actually, now that she came to think about it, there had never been the opportunity for her to be jealous before. Throughout their time at the Academy, Fitz had never had a girlfriend, or even gone on a date. She, on the other hand, had dated sporadically, never staying in a relationship for longer than a few weeks but never having a shortage of guys willing to take her out.

Had Fitz felt this way every time she left him behind in his dorm room for a date?

Jemma groaned again and pushed the palms of her hands up against her cheeks, sliding them up her face so they ran through her tangled hair.

She was being utterly ridiculous. Why was she so jealous that another girl was interested in Fitz, that she had sent him a Valentine's card that had so overshadowed her own to him, that right this moment she could be pressing her lips to his and he could be tasting her lipstick?

Did _she_ want to be kissing Fitz instead?

On the screen, old Rose shut her eyes for the last time as her younger self walked up the stairs of the ship towards a smiling, waiting Jack. It was only when Jemma put up her hands to touch her face that she realised she had tears trailing all the way down her cheeks.

 

 

It had just gone ten o'clock when their front door opened again.

Jemma had just replaced the Titanic disk in the DVD player with another favourite; The Notebook. She glanced up from her nest of blankets on the sofa in surprise, just as Noah asked Allie to lie down on the road with him.

Fitz cracked the door open a fraction at a time, as if he was afraid it might explode if he pushed too hard. Once he had met her eyes, though, he pushed it open with a sigh of relief.

'I thought you might be asleep.'

Jemma shook her head, and hoped her face didn't look as tear-stained as it felt. 'No.'

He shut the door again and tossed his jacket onto a chair.

'You're back early,' Jemma observed.

'Hmm?' Fitz's eyes were trained on the TV screen, where Noah and Allie were dotting each other's faces with ice cream ('What a waste,' he had complained the last time she had made him watch it). 'Oh. I guess so.'

He walked over to the sofa and nudged at her foot.

'Budge up,' he said softly, and Jemma realised that somehow she had gravitated over from her side of the sofa to his. Obediently, she shuffled back across and Fitz sat down beside her, pulling one of her blankets across to cover his knees.

'Have they said they're birds yet?'

'Not yet.'

'I like that bit.'

'I know you do, Fitz.'

They sat together in silence, watching the film. Fitz's arm rested lightly on the back of the sofa. Jemma's hands lay still in her lap, and for the first time that evening her stomach felt settled. She felt a soft shock register in her brain as she realised the extent of the effect his presence had on her. Even just by being there, not even talking, he could sooth her into quiet contentment. He was her best friend, Jemma thought soberly. She needed him.

They watched, as Noah told Allie if she was a bird, he was a bird. Jemma inched back across the sofa so that her hip was pressed against Fitz's. They watched as Noah and Allie fought, as she left and he went to war, watched as their lives brought them back together again and Noah showed Allie the house he had made for them, their house.

Somewhere between Noah and Allie making love in that house and Allie's mum giving her Noah's letters back, Jemma's head found its way onto Fitz's shoulder and his arm fell around her back, his hand cupped over her shoulder. His breathing was steady and even, his heartbeat a reassuring reminder that he was still there. Jemma found herself wishing that they never had to move again.

'You were back early,' she repeated quietly, as Allie left her fiancé and returned to Noah.

'Yeah.'

She waited. 'Did you have a nice time?'

'I guess.'

'You guess?'

He paused. 'They did have hot plates for the steak.'

'That really wasn't what I meant, Fitz.'

He shifted, letting her head slide even lower down his shoulder, falling into his chest. Jemma didn't right herself, and Fitz didn't push her up either.

'Ruth's nice,' he said. 'Really nice. And she wanted to split the bill.'

Jemma frowned and rose up to look at him. 'You didn't let her, did you?' she asked, narrowing her eyes slightly.

He scoffed. 'Course I didn't, Simmons. Despite what you might think, I can be a gentleman, you know.'

Jemma rolled her eyes, and laid her head back down on his chest. 'I never said I didn't think you were a gentleman,' she mumbled. Fitz still hadn't objected to her practically lying on top of him.

On the screen, older Allie became lucid again, recognising Noah for the first time. Jemma sniffled. Fitz's hand came up and gently stroked the back of her head. It felt nice. Really nice.

'I like her,' Fitz said, quietly. 'As a friend. She's nice, and pretty, and smart. But she's not...'

He trailed off abruptly, as if the words had been on the tip of his tongue and he'd decided in the middle of saying them that he didn't want to anymore.

'Not what?'

He shook his head. 'Nothing.' A pause. 'She was taller than me.'

'Well, that's not exactly hard if she was wearing heels.'

'She wasn't.'

'Oh.' Jemma tried not to smile.

Allie was forgetting again, her panic rising like a tidal wave, and Noah was taken to hospital, hand over his heart.

'I panicked,' Fitz said, after a while. 'No one has ever...shown any interest in me like _that_ , before.'

His fingers were worrying over the top of the blanket. Jemma wondered if it would be weird if she put her own hand over his.

'I guess I got scared,' Fitz whispered. 'That no one ever would.'

Jemma felt a sudden pain in her chest and bit her lip hard to keep back the tears prickling behind her lids.

'I think that's why I said yes. Because she chose me. Not because I _like_ liked her, but because she chose me instead of anybody else and I realised that too late.' Fitz gave a haggered sigh. 'I didn't want to stay long after that. Give her the wrong idea.'

'Was she okay?'

'Yeah. Yeah, she was okay about it. She's really nice.'

The film was nearly over. Noah had been released from hospital, and came back to Allie, who still remembered him, remembered their love. You didn't get to choose who you loved, Jemma thought. There was no science behind it, no rationale, nothing she could calculate or categorise or hypothesize about. It just happened.

Gently, Jemma patted Fitz's chest with the back of her hand. 'I'll always choose you, Fitz.'

She felt him smile, his mouth pressed into the top of her head. 'Thanks, Jem.'

'As my partner. My best friend.'

Why had she felt the need to add that?

There was a heartbeat, before he replied. 'Yeah. I know.' The hand that rested on her shoulder rubbed back and forth absently.

Noah told Allie that he'd never leave her, that their love could do anything. He lay down beside her and took her hand, and the tears started to run down Jemma's cheeks again. Above her head, she heard Fitz sniff as well (though, of course, he would deny it if she asked him).

The screen faded to black and Jemma dragged the heel of her hand across her eyes to dry away her tears.

'Do you want to watch one of your films now?' she asked in a whisper as the credits rolled by.

'Nah.' Fitz rested his head ontop of hers. 'S'okay. I'll put another one of yours on in a minute.'

But the credits finished, and his hand was still in her hair and her head was still on his chest as it rose and fell, and Jemma began to wonder if she wasn't the only one who wished they never had to move again.

 

 

Jemma woke up to sunlight streaming through the window and the sound of the shower running in the bathroom.

She blinked blearily and found to her hazy disbelief that she was lying stretched out on the sofa, a cushion tucked under her head and a blanket curled around her shoulder. She couldn't remember falling asleep, she couldn't remember being carefully arranged like this. She couldn't remember Fitz leaving.

Must have been some night.

Jemma yawned, and twisted her head to the side, trying to look at her watch. There was a crackling of paper underneath her head and she frowned, pushing herself up onto one elbow.

Lying on the cushion was a Valentine, handmade from white card with conical flasks spouting pink bubbles in the shapes of hearts drawn on the front.

Jemma picked it up in shaky hands, running her fingertips gently across the front of the card. Her heart was hammering against the inside of her chest and she swallowed, her throat suddenly dry.

She opened the card and, reading the small rhyme written on the inside, felt her heart skip a beat.

 

“ _Lithium is red,_

_Cobalt chloride is blue,_

_You're my best friend,_

_And I'll always choose you too_.”

 


End file.
